Control your Lync presence during a Pomodoro Sprint using PowerShell

This article is for you Lync-PRO’s out there who want to differentiate yourself from the average Lync user and at the same time want to reach true flow state using the Pomodoro Technique

This article discusses

The Pomodoro Technique

Flow state by Jason Silva

My Lync controlling Pomodoro PowerShell Script

The Script

The Pomodoro Technique

Scott Hanselman explained the Pomodoro Technique in a great way on his PodCast. Pomodoro is about splitting your productive time into intervals of about 25 minutes. During that time you should ignore E-mail, Lync, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, news, colleagues and all other elements that could distract you from your trail of thought, your deep dive focus, your flow state.

I have a busy day and it comprise of presentations, meetings, workshops, customer dialogue, support sessions and talking with colleagues. Sometimes I actually need to deep dive into a problem or produce good documentation, where I have to focus for at least 10 minutes before I reach my flowstate and I need to stay in that flow state as long as possible. My biggest problem is that I am easily distracted and that is why I need to really focus to get real work done :) When I first sit down, I try to do Pomodoro sprints where I try not to get interrupted. When the interval is finished I am available for all the Lync IM’s, mails and everything. This way I may get more quality work done in a short period of time. Read more about Pomodoro here: http://pomodorotechnique.com

Flow State

My goal is to reach a flow state. Jason Silva, my favourite futurist, did a talk on his YouTube channel Shots of Awe. Recommend to get inspired by his talk about the subject

My Lync controlling Pomodoro PowerShell Script

When in a Pomodoro focus session I set do-not-disturb in Lync, disable notifications in Windows 8, and close all web sites that can distract me so I can focus on the work at hand be it an e-mail, document, script or configuration task. I use PowerShell as my Pomodoro timer and with the Lync SDK I am able to start a session, set the correct custom status and know that even if I forget, I will reset my status when my focus session is over.

#Checking if the files are available
if (Test-Path $ModulePathISO){$ModulePath=$ModulePathISO}
elseif (Test-Path $ModulePathStream){$ModulePath=$ModulePathStream}
else{Write-host SDK dll file not found;Write-Host Exiting script;break}

if (!(Test-Path $StartWave)){Write-host Start Wave file not found;$stop="True"}
if (!(Test-Path $EndWave)){Write-host End Wave file not found;$stop="True"}
if ($Stop -eq $True){Read-host "Wav files could not be found, press enter to continue or crl+c to exit";$errorpref="SilentlyContinue"}